Poems by Bob Boyd

I change into my gray pants
and my long sleeve red shirt.
I put on my black sports coat
and my ruddy blue Gatsby cap.
I hop into my 2008 Honda
turn the key in the ignition,
back out of the apartment
parking area and head
out onto Wendover Avenue.
Fifteen minutes later
I’m walking into Harris
Teeter, my favorite grocery
store. I amble past the
many shoppers until I
arrive at the ice cream
freezer cases. I slide open
one of the doors and grab
a pint of Haagen Dazs
Chocolate Chip Cookie
Dough ice cream. I check
out at the self service
registers, transaction
approved, and I drive
home dreaming of the
first Haagen Dazs bite.
And think to myself,
it’s been a good night out.
Sure you could say it’s
boring, but for me at
my age, it’s far more
enjoyable than when
in a dark ages part
of my misspent youth,
a night out meant
getting drunk and crazy.

Bob Boyd

Sitting in my second floor apartment on top of the street below, people taking leisurely strolls on the sidewalk, an elderly woman walking a pesky pug dog, an old man hobbling on a cane, and farther than I can see, people being born, people dying, lots of joy, lots of crying.

A ceiling fan spins tirelessly over my head, fish in my aquariums swim about, clouds drift in the blue sky, the earth spins beneath my feet, the planets in the cosmos rotate above my head, the universe expands, the Godhead at the controls, and I’m sitting here, heart beating, lungs breathing, eyes seeing, trying to fathom what this creation is really all about.

Bob Boyd

A lonely, monarch male butterfly sat upon a pink verbena flower pining for his true love, his magnificent, stained glass orange and black lined wings fluttering and emitting pheromones with the hope of attracting his true love.

A beautiful, female monarch butterfly swooned over his pheromones and his handsomeness. She flew to his flowered perch, her wings and her heart fluttering, and it was love at first sight. They embraced and made love for sixteen hours, as is the butterfly custom when true love blooms.

And though the monarch male butterfly only lived for two weeks, those sixteen hours were the best hours of his life.

Bob Boyd

He’d been watching her for a week, getting her patterns down, a pretty, single mother with two kids.

A serial rapist and murderer, he had to have her and her life

He knew her schedules, when she went to work, when she came home, and he knew she lived alone, except for two toddlers, and went to bed at 10 pm.

The night arrived when his lust could no longer be denied. This was the night he was going to rape and kill her, and maybe her kids, and vanish into obscurity afterwards.

She heard him breaking into her house when the sound woke her up.

She yelled, “I’ve got a gun! He yelled back, “I have one too!”

As he busted down the door, she began shooting. He shot back.

When the shooting stopped and the gun smoke cleared, she was alive and he was dead never to rape and murder another woman again.

I don’t own a gun and would like to live in a gun free society, but it cannot be denied that sometimes guns save lives.

And I can understand how some see the need to take extra precautions to protect themselves and their families. And I have no problem with that.

Bob Boyd

I will never forget how helpful you were to me
when I started my work helping the elderly.
An African American woman, you treated
people of all races the same in your loving
and compassionate lifetime of service to
the sick, the dying, the homeless,
the poor, and the elderly.

For your years of dedicated service, you
deserved the street named after you:
Dorothy Brown Street, and the many
accolades you were honored with for
your incomparable compassion and
all that you did selflessly for others.

I regret I was in the Philippines when you died
and never got to go to your funeral.

Years later when I returned to America and
settled back in Greensboro, I tried to find
your gravesite, but I could never find it
to pay you homage and thanks for all the
help you gave me for finding services
and resources to better serve the
many seniors needing help
in our community.

It is my hope that when I die,
I’ll see you again to thank you for being
the wonderful human being you were and
for your exemplary service to others,
and your expertise you shared with me.

Bob Boyd

As a tall and slender ectomorph,
he was never an easy gainer of
muscle mass, but as a hard gainer
he had modest success and
16 inch arms with bulging biceps
when he was a skinny but strong
teenage kid.

But now as an old man who has
worked out all his life, that
unforgiving sarcopenia has stripped
him of his past muscles gains.

And though he works out steadfastly,
pumping up his muscles three times
a week, his muscles have become
nonresponsive, and he looks like a
skinny old man who never had any
muscles and never worked out.

But at an age when many of his
peers are on walkers or in nursing
homes, he’s still stronger than he
would have been if he never
touched a weight or worked out.
And he feels fantastic when he
works out despite the lack of
results.

More importantly, working out
makes him feel more alive and
incredibly relaxed, and that
alone is worth the iron willed
unfaltering effort.

Bob Boyd

I went downstairs to check my mail, and, shudder, I saw a letter from the North Carolina Department of Revenue.

Oh no, I thought, they’re after me for more tax money. Turbo Tax must have screwed up, and now I have to send God knows how much more tax money to them thanks to an error not of my making.

With trembling hands, an increasing pulse rate, my heartbeat quickening, a sickening feeling in my stomach, a sense of dread in my mind, I reluctantly peel the foreboding envelope open.

With a sigh and tremendous relief, I discover a single page with a check for $120 attached to the bottom of it.

Whew! Sometimes in this life you get a break.

Bob Boyd

Brave soul
lost left arm once
while walking past
a lioness’s cage.

She seized the arm
from between the
bars and damaged it
so badly it had to be
amputated.

Despite that attack,
he became a
renown lion tamer

known as being
bold and
adventurous with
the lions and
cautioned about
being too reckless,
at times turning
his back on them.

On January 3rd,
1872, he fell to the
ground during a
performance with
five large lions.

A black Barbary lion
roared and leaped
upon him and the
four other lions
roared and joined in
mauling Macarte and
ripping off his flesh.

In the audience, men
shuddered and women
fainted at the
terrifying sight.

Eventually and with
great effort, Macarte
was rescued from
the lions, but his flesh
was torn from his bones.

And after the attack of
a quarter of an hour,
Macarte said, “I’m done
for,” and died on the
way to a hospital.

Bob Boyd

I’ve had that I feel like I’ve known you before feeling,
and though I’m hoping reincarnation isn’t factual
(more about that later), maybe when you get that
feeling, you have known that person in a former life.
Maybe as some reincarnation theories suggest,
groups of people reincarnate together.

Imagine if you have a love and a marriage that
lasted all your life and seemed as perfect as a
marriage could be. Perhaps you had found your
soulmate and you had been together in a former
life or lives and would be together until you both
get off the wheel of rebirth.

I’m hoping reincarnation isn’t factual because
imagine coming back on the cusp of a nuclear
holocaust or into something like a future
purge comparable to Stalin’s purges or the
Killing Fields of Cambodia?

However if you were coming back for love, for
the soulmate of your lifetimes, I believe it would
be worth it no matter the perils, no matter the hells.

Bob Boyd

a butterfly flutters past my window.
hard to imagine it was once a caterpillar.

hard to imagine a butterfly was once a
strange-looking insect like that.

amazing the transformative power
of nature

except how it has transformed me
from a virile young stallion to a dried
up old nag.

I would like to be as buoyant as a butterfly
but those days are gone for me.

Now the only buoyancy I can attain
is the freedom of my impending death

when like the earthbound caterpillar that
transforms into the radiant butterfly,
this earth-cocooned body will be reborn
into the freedom of a buoyant, beautiful spirit.

Bob Boyd